THE TWO SUNSETS

While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.
From out the darkness, where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,
Whose light seemed not of moon or sun;
We spake not, but our thought was one.
We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckoned our dear ones gone before;
And stilled our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear!
Sudden our pathway turned from night;
The hills swung open to the light;

Thro' their green gates the sunshine showed;
A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Down glade, and glen, and bank it rolled:
It bridged the shaded stream with gold,
And, borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side!

"So," prayed we, "when our feet draw near
The river, dark with mortal fear,

"And the night cometh, chill with dew,
O Father! let Thy light break through!

"So let the hills of doubt divide,

So bridge with faith the sunless tide!

"So let the eyes that fail on earth

On Thy eternal hills look forth;

"And, in Thy beckoning angels, know

The dear ones whom we loved below!"-John G. Whittier.

TREASURES

The life to come will be as quick and loving as my life on earth, and it is mine. With the fleeting of earth I have not lost the immortality of heaven. With the decay of the house of love in which I dwelt I have not lost the building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. With the decay of my body and the failing of my brain and the loss of the shaping power of imagination, I have not lost my true life; I shall breathe and think and create again. Rust and moth may do their work here, on all that I have pursued and enjoyed and loved. But I shall renew my interests, joys, and love, my power, my pursuits and life in the world where I have stored up my treasures.-S. A. B.

345

"THRO' THEIR GREEN GATES THE SUNSHINE FLOWED "

THE PORTS

The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds,
Through which our merit leads us to our needs.
How wilful blind is he, then, that should stray,
And hath it in his power to make his way!

This world death's region is, the other life's;
And here it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as men might judge us past it,
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

-Ben Jonson.

BOTH STATE AND PLACE

Each man has a separate and individual, though, perhaps, an indistinct idea of his own of what heaven may be. To some it is merely a state. It is all within. We may carry it about us wherever we go, in the perfect rest of a conscience washed in blood, a soul fully conscious of its acquittal from condemnation, the joy of a spiritual fellowship with Christ and the Father, the love which ever gushes forth in the sublime language of praise, as we sing, "Whom having not seen we love; in whom though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory." To others it is all associated with a place. There must be trees, rivers, golden pavements, jasper walls, harps of gold, bejeweled crowns, companies of angelic beings, all the insignia of a royal life, a great tableau in which they shall share, majestic spectacles in which they shall bear their part. Probably a combination of both ideas will furnish us with the most appropriate representation of those heavenly delights which we hope soon to share. Take two men of kindred purity of spirit. Let one dwell amid the gloom of dark ravines, where the chill atmosphere is never warmed by the genial rays of the sun, where overhanging rocks make perpetual gloom, where no music save that of the hoarse cataract is ever heard, where the song birds never come, the dewdrops never glint, flowers never shed perfume on the breeze, and the only vegetation is the loathsome fungi that finds its congenial home amid the darkness. Let another dwell in a sweet sylvan nook, a quiet cottage in the bosom of the laughing valley, whence he can see the heather bells, and smell the brier rose, or go forth and sit at the lakeside amid the shade of birch and pine and aspen, while the rich breezes from the mountains on either hand. pour torrents of life through his veins. Can you doubt which will be the happier of the two? Surely he who possesses the purity within, and enjoys the heaven without. The state and the place combine together to make the happiness so far complete.-G. Evans.

My idea of Heaven is perfect love.-Wilberforce.

THE TRANSLATED LILY

Thou wilt never grow old,

Nor weary, nor sad, in the home of thy birth.
My beautiful lily, thy leaves will unfold

In a clime that is purer and brighter than earth.
O holy and fair! I rejoice thou art there,

In that kingdom of light with its cities of gold,
Where the air thrills with angel hosannas, and where
Thou wilt never grow old, sweet,

Never grow old!

I am a pilgrim, with sorrow and sin
Haunting my footsteps wherever I go;

Life is a warfare my title to win;

Well will it be if it end not in woe.

Pray for me, sweet: I am laden with care;
Dark are my garments with mildew and mold:
Thou, my bright angel, art sinless and fair,
And wilt never grow old, sweet,

Never grow old!

Now canst thou hear from thy home in the skies
All the fond words I am whispering to thee?
Dost thou look down on me with the soft eyes
That greeted me oft ere thy spirit was free?
So I believe, though the shadows of time

Hide the bright spirit I yet shall behold:
Thou wilt still love me, and-pleasure sublime!—
Thou wilt never grow old, sweet,

Never grow old!

Thus wilt thou be when the pilgrim, grown gray,

Weeps when the vines from the hearthstone are riven;

Faith shall behold thee as pure as the day

Thou wert torn from the earth and transplanted in heaven:

O holy and fair! I rejoice thou art there,

In that kingdom of light with its cities of gold,

Where the air thrills with angel hosannas, and where

Thou wilt never grow old, sweet,

Never grow old!-Mrs. Howarth.

Heaven is the dwelling place of God when he specially manifests his glory:

it is a place of perpetual enjoyment.-A. Ritchie.

EMPLOYMENTS OF HEAVEN

All our meditations on, and descriptions of, heaven want balance, and are, so to speak, pictures ill composed. We first build up our glorified human nature by such hints as are furnished us in Scripture; we place it in an abode worthy of it; and then after all we give it an unending existence with nothing to do. It was not ill said by a great preacher, that most people's idea of heaven was that it is to sit on a cloud and sing praises. And others again strive to fill this out with the bliss of recognizing and holding intercourse with those from whom we have been severed on earth. And beyond all doubt such recognition and intercourse shall be, and shall constitute, one of the most blessed accessories of the heavenly employment; but it can no more be that employment itself than similar intercourse on earth was the employment of life here.

To read some descriptions of heaven, one would imagine that it were only an endless prolongation of some social meeting; walking and talking in some blessed country with those whom we love. It is clear that we have not thus provided the renewed energies and enlarged powers or perfected man with food for eternity. Nor if we look in another direction, that of the absence of sickness and care and sorrow, shall we find any more satisfactory answer to our question. Nay, rather shall we find it made more difficult and beset with more complications. For let us think how much of employment for our present energies is occasioned by, and finds its very field of action in, the anxieties and vicissitudes of life. They are, so to speak, the winds which fill the sail and carry us onward. By their action, hope and enthusiasm are excited. But suppose a state where they are not, and life would become a dead calm; the sail would flap idly, and the spirit would cease to look onward at all. So that unless we can supply something over and above the mere absence of anxiety and pain, we have not attained to, nay, we are farther than ever from, a sufficient employment for the life eternal. Now, before we seek for it in another direction, let us think for a moment in this way. Are we likely to know much of it? What does the child at its play know of the employments of the man? Such portions of them as are merely external and material he may take in, and represent in his sport; but the work and anxiety of the student at his book, or the man of business at his desk, these are of necessity entirely hidden from the child. And so it is onward through the advancing stages of life. On each of them it may be said, "We know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come thither." So that we need not be utterly disappointed if our picture of heaven be at present ill composed, if it seem to be little else than a gorgeous mist after all. We cannot fill in the members of the landscape at present. If we could, we should be in heaven.-Dean Alford.

The joys of Heaven are like the stars, which, by reason of our remoteness, appear extremely little.-R. Bayle.